2018-02-16 Bird and Bat Boxes

A cohort of enthusiastic volunteers met on the sunny morning of the 16th of February, to site and fix a variety of boxes to suitable trees in the wooded areas on the fringe of the Calder and Hebble Navigation towpath between the Navigation Inn and the first Railway Bridge towards Horbury Bridge.

The boxes were funded by the Horbury and Ossett Phoenix Charitable Trust and fabricated by the special needs young people who are service users of the Thornes Park Nurseries Project led by their Lead Volunteer, Roger Parkinson of Wakefield Tree Wardens Group.

Volunteers included Roger Parkinson himself, Arthur Lumb, Ken Sugden and Bob Haigh of The Broad Cut Breakfast Club (Canals & Rivers Trust Volunteers who have ‘adopted’ this stretch of the Canal from the Navigation pub to the Figure of Three Lock at Healey Bottom) and Rotarians Mike Rogers and Nick Bardsley.

We established boxes for a range of species, just in advance of nesting time, including Robin, Wren, Great Tit, Tree Creeper, Pipistrelle Bat and the less common Noctule Bat.Roger’s son has the equipment to monitor the progress of these new habitats and any increase in bird and bat populations. I will feed back the results to the club and post them on this website, as and when we have them.

Thanks again to volunteers and members who voted in support of this community project.